Short Fiction by Xavier de Maistre (digital e reader txt) 📕

of the storm. At another time he presents to the eye of the wondering beholder the delightful plains of ancient Sicily: startled nymphs flee the pursuit of a satyr through the bending reeds; temples of stately architecture raise their grand fronts above the sacred forest that surrounds them. Imagination loses itself among the still paths of this ideal country. Bluish backgrounds blend with the sky, and the whole landscape, reproduced in the waters of a tranquil river, forms a scene that no tongue can describe.

While my soul was thus reflecting, the other went its way, Heaven knows whither! Instead of going to court, according to orders, it took such a turn to the left, that my soul just caught it up at Madame de Hautcastel’s door, full half a mile from the Palais Royal!

Now I leave the reader to fancy what might have been the consequence had the truant visited so beautiful a lady alone.

VIII

If it is both useful and agreeable to have a soul so disengaged from matter that we can let it travel alone whenever we please, this has also its disadvantages. Through this, for instance, I got the burn I spoke of a few chapters back.

I generally leave my animal to prepare my breakfast. Its care it is to slice and toast my bread. My coffee it makes admirably, and helps itself thereto without my soul’s concerning herself in the transaction. But this is a very rare and nice performance to execute; for though it is easy enough while busied in a mechanical operation, to think of something quite different, it is extremely difficult, so to speak, to watch one’s self-work, or, if I express myself systematically, to employ one’s soul to examine the animal’s progress, and to watch its work without taking part in it. This is the most extraordinary metaphysical feat a man can execute.

I had rested my tongs on the embers to toast my bread, and some little time afterwards, while my soul was travelling, a burning stick fell on the hearth: my poor animal seized the tongs, and I burnt my fingers.

IX

I hope I have sufficiently developed my ideas in the foregoing chapters to furnish you, good reader, with matter for thought, and to enable you to make discoveries along the brilliant career before you. You cannot be other than highly satisfied with yourself if you succeed in the long run in making your soul travel alone. The pleasure afforded by this power will amply counterbalance any inconvenience that may arise from it. What more flattering delight is there than the being able thus to expand one’s existence, to occupy at once earth and heaven, to double, so to speak, one’s being? Is it not man’s eternal, insatiable desire to augment his strength and his faculties, to be where he is not, to recall the past, and live in the future? He would fain command armies, preside over learned societies, and be the idol of the fair. And, if he attain to all this, then he regrets the tranquillity of a rural life, and envies the shepherd’s cot. His plans, his hopes, are constantly foiled by the ills that flesh is heir to. He can find happiness nowhere. A quarter of an hour’s journey with me will show him the way to it.

Ah, why does he not leave to the other those carking cares and that tormenting ambition. Come, my poor friend! Make but an effort to burst from thy prison, and from the height of heaven, whither I am about to lead thee, from the midst of the celestial shades, from the empyrean itself, behold thy animal run along the road to fortune and honor. See with what gravity it walks among men. The crowd falls back with respect, and believe me, none will remark that it is alone. The people among whom it walks care very little whether it has a soul or not, whether it thinks or not. A thousand sentimental women will fall desperately in love with it without discovering the defect. It may even raise itself without thy soul’s help to the highest favor and fortune. Nay, I should not be astonished if, on thy return from the empyrean, thy soul, on getting home, were to find itself in the animal of a noble lord.

X

But you must not let yourself think that instead of keeping my promise to describe my journey round my room, I am beating the bush to see how I can evade the difficulty. This would be a great mistake on your part. For our journey is really going on; and while my soul, falling back on her own resources, was in the last chapter threading the mazy paths of metaphysics, I had so placed myself in my armchair, that its front legs being raised about two inches from the floor, I was able, by balancing myself from left to right, to make way by degrees, and at last, almost without knowing it, to get close to the wall, for this is how I travel when not pressed for time. When there, my hand possessed itself by a mere mechanical effort, of the portrait of Madame de Hautcastel; and the other amused itself with removing the dust which covered it. This occupation produced a feeling of quiet pleasure, and the pleasure was conveyed to my soul, lost though it was in the vast plains of heaven. For it is well to observe that when the mind is thus travelling in space, it still keeps linked to the senses by a secret and subtle chain; so that, without being distracted from its occupations, it can participate in the peaceful joys of the other. But should this pleasure reach a certain pitch, or should the soul be struck by some unexpected vision, it forthwith descends swift as lightning, and resumes its place.

And that is just what happened to me while dusting the picture. Whilst the